Hurricane Michael(Lucarius)
Overview Michael was a destructive and powerful hurricane that spawned in the middle of the Atlantic. It is the costliest hurricane on record with $189 billion(2018 USD) and the strongest US landfall on record. It also became one of the first tropical systems to strike Europe directly. Michael brought catastrophic damage to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Florida, Georgia, Sweden, Norway and Ireland. It was part of the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane season and one of the 5 major hurricanes that formed that year. Meteorological History On the afternoon of August 6th, the Lucarius Hurricane Center(LHC) started tracking a tropical wave of the coast of Africa. The tropical wave started developing throughout the rest of the day. It eventually became Tropical Depression Fifteen at about 1:30 am on August 7th. The system quickly developed over the next 6 hours, becoming Tropical Storm Michael later that day. Michael started rapid intensification into August 10th. It was named Hurricane Michael on August 8th, and achieved Category 3 status the morning of August 10th. Michael made it's first landfall on August 12th at about 8:45am in Puerto Rico. As Michael continued to approach many forms of land, Cuba and Florida in the most imminent danger, issued a state of emergency. Forecasts showed that Michael had a 80% chance to make a direct landfall with a US state. Michael continued to barrel towards Florida, it's massive size brought catastrophic amounts of rain to Cuba despite not making a direct landfall. It became a Category 5 Hurricane on August 14th and quickly strengthened. It eventually peaked at 190 mph, just 3 hours before making landfall in Miami, Florida. It continued to bring destruction to Florida. It's massive size had brought notable flooding to southern Georgia as well. Michael, unlike the forecasts, did a surprising recurve northeastward. Michael regenerated back from it's high-end Category 4 state to a Category 5, strengthening back to 180 mph before slowly weakening as it moved over cooler waters. On August 20th, a state of emergency was issued for Sweden, Norway and Ireland as Michael moved closer to the countries without an extra-tropical transition showing. On August 22nd, Michael became the first Tropical Hurricane to make a direct landfall with a European country. He became extra-tropical that day while over Norway. Michael's remnants split into 3 parts. The first stalled out over Ireland. The second dissipated over Russia. The last drifted South and contributed to the development of another Tropical Depression. Damages and Effects Delays and Damage The Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New Orleans Saints game was cancelled due to Hurricane Michael. Michael caused damage to widespread locations as well. Puerto Rico saw over $500 million in damage and over 80% of structures and buildings lost power. Cuba saw over $100 million and suffered 50% of customers with outages. Over 70% of buildings in florida were flooded and/or damaged, and Atlanta had 29% of structures destroyed. Many Europeans in Sweden, Norway and Ireland were left homeless. After Effects Many airports in Tampa, Miami and Atlanta were closed for over 3 months afterward and over 50 businesses were left out of business for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. It took almost a year to restore power to 75% of the people without it. Records and Retirement Records Michael became the first Hurricane to strike a European country directly without making an extratropical transition. In addition, Michael became the costliest hurricane on record, and was named the worst natural disaster of 2018. Michael had spawned on of the highest tornado spawn rate on record. While the exact amount of tornadoes spawned is unknown, Cuba saw over 50 of them(9 of them were short-lived EF-5s). Retirement Due to the catastrophic damage, massive sides and strength and widespread effects, Michael was retired along with Isaac, Debby and Gordon and was replaced with Mikey for the 2024 season. Michael will not be used for another Atlantic Hurricane. Category:Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes Category:Costly storms Category:Strong Storms Category:Atlantic hurricanes